Revealed! D Shivakumar's strategy for innovation

At a B-school event a couple of months ago, the evergreen topic of discussion — innovation — took centre stage. Three top CEOs representing blue chip technology and FMCG companies were a part of the panel. Pepsico India CEO, D Shivakumar shared his thoughts on the subject, specifically his three tips to fostering mavericks, and in turn, innovation at the company.

According to Shivakumar, mavericks and ideas mostly get killed, thanks to senior management. Often, the senior management has a lot of expertise and experience but could be out of sync with the market. “The desk is a dangerous place to see the world from. I fully subscribe to that,” he said. So, the solution is travel, travel a lot. Go out to the marketplace for at least a week every month.

Keep at innovation

“I heard someone say that the highest paid person gets his opinion heard. I would seriously urge the CEOs and whoever is chairing the meeting to speak last,” Shivakumar said. He even recounted his own experience as a young brand manager, trying to share his ideas at meetings.

“Every time that I presented, a senior brand manager, the senior-most person, would say, ‘This won’t work.’ And you have to remind that person that he is not the target audience. That is the challenge of mavericks in organisations. To say that you are not the target audience, someone else is,” Shivakumar said.

Lastly, companies must be able to spot where the competence of the idea lies and be able to quickly latch onto it. So if a product person gives a packaging idea , but doesn’t have the competence to deliver, it must be quickly passed on to those who can. This can be critical to ensuring continued innovation.